Aspen Aerogels, Inc. (ASPN) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Good morning. Thank you for attending the Aspen Aerogels, Inc. Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Neal Baranosky, Aspen's VP of Corporate Strategy and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may proceed, Mr. Baranosky.

Neal Baranosky: Thank you, Kathleen. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the Aspen Aerogels Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. With us today are Don Young, President and CEO, and Grant Thoele, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. The press release announcing Aspen's financial results and business developments, and the slide deck that will accompany our conversation today, are available on the Investors section of Aspen's website, www.aerogel.com. During this call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross margin, and adjusted net income. The reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures are included in the back of the slide presentation and earnings release. On today's call, management will make forward-looking statements about our expectations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Please review the disclaimer statements on page one of the slide deck, as the content of our call will be governed by this language. I'd also like to note that from time to time, in connection with the vesting of restricted stock units and/or stock options issued under our long-term incentive equity program, we expect that our Section 16 officers will file Forms 4 to report the sale and/or withholding of shares in order to cover the payment of taxes and/or the exercise price of options. I'll now turn the call over to Don. Don?

Don Young: Thanks, Neal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Strong third quarter, exceeding the high end of our outlook for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. The improvement was broad-based, with robust energy industrial deliveries, increased demand from GM, and growing contributions from our European EV customers. We also achieved early commercial milestones in data center infrastructure and battery energy storage systems. These results demonstrate progress toward our goal of growing and diversifying revenue while building durable profitability. Let me discuss the drivers of our performance, the opportunities ahead, and our progress at the East Providence manufacturing facility. Our third quarter outlook called for a revenue range of $65 million-$80 million and an adjusted EBITDA range of $7 million-$15 million. We delivered approximately $85 million in revenue and $20 million in adjusted EBITDA. This performance reflects the strength of customer demand across several parts of our business and a return to higher gross margins. Starting with energy industrial, we continue to target approximately 20% growth in 2026, despite the disruption at the East Providence facility. Strong project demand is driving our second half energy industrial performance. In Q3, we delivered our planned subsea projects, reflecting strong execution by the team. LNG deliveries were also strong in Q3 and are continuing at a robust pace in Q4. We are expanding our scope on several current projects scheduled for 2026 and 2027 deliveries. We see a substantial multi-year opportunity in LNG, particularly in the U.S., the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Looking ahead to 2027, we believe our energy industrial business is well-positioned for another solid growth year. We have momentum from a strong second half of 2026, a 2027 subsea project in hand, and market dynamics driven by a multi-year investment cycle in energy infrastructure to support the global need for energy security, supply diversification, and reliable power. On the topic of new and adjacent markets, growing investment in energy storage and data center infrastructure is creating new opportunities for Aspen. In BESS, we generated initial revenue during the third quarter from parts supplied to multiple leading market participants for advanced design and evaluation work. As safety requirements evolve, manufacturers and developers are seeking higher performance, cost-effective, made-in-America thermal protection solutions, and our proven Pyrogel technology positions us well to address these needs. We are pleased to capture first revenue and believe this opportunity will expand to contribute to our 2027 growth and profitability. In a new adjacent market, we are pleased to have captured our first data center infrastructure order for delivery in Q4 2026. A large data center campus is utilizing our products as part of its technical approach to manage the extreme resource demands associated with these mega sites and to reduce the impact on the surrounding community. We believe resource efficiency will be a key factor in data center growth. This opportunity is a natural extension of our thermal management expertise, drawing on our aerogel technology, manufacturing capabilities, and technical experience. We believe we are well-positioned to support the growing power generation and resource efficiency needs of AI data centers. We will share more detail on future calls after completing our initial installations and further defining the opportunity. We believe this market could contribute significantly to scaling energy industrial into a durable, high-margin business without the need for incremental capital investment. Turning to our PyroThin thermal barrier business, revenue grew 81% sequentially in Q2 and another 54% in Q3. In North America, U.S. EV demand has stabilized at approximately 6%-7% of new vehicle sales. We see GM production aligning more closely with current sales rates while modestly rebuilding inventory, consistent with its stated demand-driven approach. In Europe, battery electric vehicles are approaching 30% of new vehicle registrations. During Q3, our European thermal barrier business achieved record revenue, supplying seven OEMs across eight programs. At our last earnings call, we projected 2026 revenue from European OEMs to be between $20 million and $30 million, up from the $10 million-$15 million projected earlier in the year. With momentum continuing in Q4, we are confident that we will be at the high end of that range. This expanding opportunity from a diverse group of European OEMs is an important contributor to our strong Q4 outlook, and we believe we can double our European thermal barrier revenue in 2027. At East Providence, we are progressing toward completing our staged restart, which we expect to accomplish in the first half of 2027. I want to recognize the Aspen team for its tireless efforts to achieve a safe and disciplined restart in the plant and for its unwavering commitment to our customers. These actions strengthen our short and long-term supply flexibility, operational resilience, and ability to serve customers reliably. Grant, over to you.

Grant Thoele: Thanks, Don, and good morning, everyone. I will cover our Q3 2026 results and Q4 outlook. Before we get into the details, I want to put this quarter into some context. Q3 showed the earnings power of this business at higher volumes, demonstrating that the financial framework we have been building since early 2025 is delivering. The last time we posted similar revenue was Q4 of 2023. Back then, we had a regulatory backdrop geared for mass EV adoption. We were preparing for GM's ramp as our primary OEM, and we were building additional aerogel capacity in Georgia. That quarter, we generated $9.1 million of adjusted EBITDA on $85 million of revenue and spent $28 million on CapEx. Since then, we have taken more than $75 million out of our fixed cost structure, diversified supply across both of our segments, started delivering revenue to seven European thermal barrier customers, and moved to a more sustainable, capital-light, and flexible manufacturing model. The result? On essentially the same $85 million of revenue, we more than doubled adjusted EBITDA to $19.8 million and spent just $4.7 million on CapEx. This is a fundamentally different Aspen, more profitable, less capital-intensive, and backed by a healthy balance sheet. That positions us to grow share in our core markets, expand into adjacent markets, and pursue new opportunities. Now, let us dive into the quarter. Third quarter revenue was $85.2 million, above the high end of our $65 million-$80 million guidance range, and up 71% quarter-over-quarter, or 17% year-over-year. Revenue included $39.9 million from energy industrial and $45.3 million from thermal barrier, which included $4.9 million of previously deferred revenue recognized in connection with the GM settlement received in Q1. Energy industrial revenue increased 96% quarter-over-quarter, in line with our expectation of approximately $40 million, as subsea project revenue landed in the quarter. Compared with the third quarter of last year, energy industrial revenue increased 64%. Thermal barrier revenue increased 54% quarter-over-quarter, driven by two factors. First, revenue from GM increased to $37.3 million from $23.7 million in Q2, as production rates align closer to sales. Second, European thermal barrier revenue grew 38% quarter-over-quarter, from $5.8 million to $8 million, marking the highest revenue generated from our European customers in a single quarter. Gross profit was $20.6 million, or 24% gross margin, up from $3.3 million, or 7% gross margin in Q2, as higher volumes absorbed more of our fixed manufacturing costs. This includes $14.7 million of incremental costs from the April incident at East Providence, which are not indicative of normal operations. While these costs are added back to adjusted EBITDA, they burden gross margin. Excluding these incident-related costs, non-GAAP adjusted gross profit was $35.3 million, or 41% gross margin. Operating expenses were $27.7 million in Q3, including a $4.6 million loss on disposal of PPE related to plant two. We also incurred approximately $400,000 in incident-related charges within OPEX. Excluding these items, adjusted non-GAAP operating expenses were $22.7 million, compared with $23.1 million in Q2. GAAP net loss narrowed to $10.4 million in Q3 from $23.3 million in Q2. Adjusted EBITDA landed at $19.8 million, above our guidance range of $7 million-$15 million. To put this profitability into perspective, on $35 million additional revenues from Q2 to Q3, we generated $26 million incremental EBITDA. That's roughly 75% of additional revenue falling to the bottom line, which is impressive, but significantly higher than typical levels, primarily due to product mix and cost absorption. For planning purposes, we continue to expect 50%-60% of incremental revenue to fall to the bottom line. As a reminder, we add back incident-related charges to adjusted EBITDA in the quarter incurred and submit claims for these costs under our insurance policies. In Q3, these charges totaled $15.1 million. They consisted of expedited freight, professional fees, and the incremental cost of temporarily sourcing certain products from our external manufacturing facility. With higher volume similar to Q3, these charges scale with increased activity. We are actively engaged in the claims process under our insurance policies and expect to continue incurring incident-related charges until the facility is restored, which we expect to complete in the first half of 2027. Turning to liquidity. We ended the third quarter with $146.5 million in cash equivalents, and restricted cash, down $6.9 million from $153.4 million in Q2. Our net cash position remained consistent with prior quarter at just above $60 million. Let's break down key cash flow items in Q3. During the quarter, we received $15 million of insurance proceeds related to property damage from the EP incident. $8.9 million flowed through investing activities once cash was received, which settled the property damage receivable we recorded in Q2. The remaining $6.1 million was recorded within accrued expenses and flowed through operating activities. Operating activities used $3.8 million of cash. Keep in mind, this is burdened by $15.1 million of incident-related charges that will be submitted under our insurance policies, so we'd see higher cash generation under normalized operations. Investing and financing activities used $3.2 million, driven by $4.7 million of CapEx, $8.9 million of insurance proceeds, and $6.5 million of scheduled term loan amortization, leaving our term loan balance at $73 million to end the quarter. Two final points on liquidity. First, I want to point out that our $146.5 million of cash does not include any potential insurance reimbursement for approximately $20 million of incident-related charges incurred year to date. Second, if we exclude incident-related charges, insurance proceeds, and debt payments, we would have delivered approximately $10 million of cash on $85 million of revenues. We have more work to do to drive incremental cash flow, but these results are encouraging. Turning to slide seven. In its simplest form, Q4 could look similar to Q3 when excluding subsea project activity. As a reminder, we typically generate between $10 million-$20 million subsea revenue annually. We have momentum in both businesses going into the final quarter of the year. We are excited to see new opportunities landing for us with strong European thermal barrier activity, increased LNG orders, and executing on our first data center infrastructure project. I'm excited to see the business becoming more sustainable as our full year assumptions around demand and supply have held up. We've seen GM production recover as inventory levels normalize, our European thermal barrier programs are delivering increasing revenues, and the energy industrial business has strong underlying drivers with approximately 20% year-over-year growth in our crosshairs. For the fourth quarter of 2026, we expect total revenue to be between $60 million and $75 million. The low end reflects a conservative view, including GM production assumptions below the current IHS forecast. Continued strength in European thermal barrier and energy industrial, building on Q3, gives us line of sight to the high end of that range. Breaking down our guide, we anticipate energy industrial revenues of approximately $35 million for the quarter. Our Q4 guide for the thermal barrier business has two primary drivers. We've assumed GM production at an annualized rate of approximately 70,000-90,000 vehicles in the quarter. GM sourced approximately 170,000 vehicles annualized in Q3, and the current IHS forecast has GM producing approximately 110,000 vehicles annualized in Q4. We know Q4 has a component of seasonality, and thus our guide is conservatively below IHS. Our European thermal barrier customers generated $18.9 million of revenue through the third quarter. This is the ramp we've been waiting for. With one quarter to go, we've already generated the most European thermal barrier revenue in any year since we got into the EV business. For the full year of 2026, we expect European programs to reach approximately $30 million of revenue. As a reminder, these European programs have not reached serial production, but most of them will SOP in 2027. In fact, customer diversification is one of the most promising factors here, as seven different OEMs across eight different programs drive growth in 2027. We continue to target meaningful growth over our 2026 outlook to approximately $50 million-$60 million of European thermal barrier revenues in 2027. Given the product mix included in our revenue range, we expect Q4 adjusted EBITDA to be between $5 million and $13 million, which includes adding back incident-related costs of approximately $5 million-$10 million. Turning to our liquidity outlook, CapEx and scheduled debt payments should total around $10 million in Q4 when excluding East Providence restoration CapEx. Working capital will remain more variable, driven by where we produce and sell finished goods, safety stock builds tied to East Providence's recovery pace, and the timing of insurance proceeds, which are paid in arrears relative to the cost they cover. Regardless of that timing, we remain confident we'll at least maintain our net cash position by year-end. When it comes to the sale of plant two assets, we continue to actively market both the building and equipment. We have buyer interest in the building and continue to drive towards liquidity as we evaluate each option. On the equipment, we plan to begin a structured sale process to sell remaining assets over the coming months. The majority of the proceeds from the sale of plant two assets are most likely a 2027 event, and as a reminder, would be applied directly to reduce our term debt on a dollar-for-dollar basis. With ample levels of liquidity today, we still see flexibility to further delever the business while staying nimble to opportunistically invest in strategic growth initiatives. Pulling this all together, three things define where Aspen stands today: a more profitable and less capital-intensive operating model, commercial traction in both segments with new market opportunities in BESS and data center infrastructure projects, and a strong balance sheet with net cash just above $60 million. Our implied fiscal year 2026 outlook ranges from $233 million-$248 million revenue and $5.5 million-$13.5 million adjusted EBITDA. We've demonstrated how powerful our financial framework can be at $85 million in quarterly revenue and $19.8 million adjusted EBITDA, and we'll carry that momentum going forward. Don, back to you.

Don Young: Thanks, Grant. Before we move to Q&A, I would like to reiterate our outlook for Q4. We expect revenue between $60 million and $75 million and adjusted EBITDA between $5 million and $13 million. We have the opportunity to be at the high end of those ranges. Our priorities are clear: scale energy industrial, broaden PyroThin's customer base, and advance adjacent opportunities where our technology can create value. We are investing in innovation and in our customer-facing commercial teams to support that work. We believe this strategy is the best path to put our financial strength to work and create long-term shareholder value. Our Q3 performance and Q4 outlook provide significant momentum as we enter 2027 with a focus on growth and durable profitability. With that, we'll open the call for questions.

Operator: Okay, we will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand, and to withdraw your question, press the star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you're muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Okay, and your first question comes from the line of Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Colin Rusch: Thanks so much, guys. Congrats on the results as well. As you look at the European opportunity and the potential for significant upside here, I just want to get a sense of where the manufacturing footprint is headed and the finishing lines. Is it the sort of thing where it might make sense to think about ramping a finishing line in Europe to meet some of that demand?

Don Young: Well, we do not have a plan to build a fabrication capability in Europe today. We are very pleased with our capabilities in Mexico, and we will focus our efforts there and our expertise there and our costs in that single facility. It is possible that we will create a shorter supply chain by having warehouse capability nearer our European customers. We are in discussions today around that idea. But today, we do not have a plan to spend capital building fabrication capability in Europe.

Colin Rusch: Excellent. Then just getting into the data center opportunity, could you just talk about the diversity of potential customers that you are working with at this point and how we might start seeing some of that activity flowing into the P&L over the next couple of years?

Don Young: Yeah. We have, as I said, Colin, captured our first order in this space, and it is focused around resource efficiency for these facilities. We are going to use this first order, the installation, it is a deliverable here in Q4 and immediate installation, and we are going to use this as a case study to demonstrate the value of our product in these areas. And you will see us use that case study as we spread out our commercial team to capture more of these kinds of orders. The opportunities are significant and broad-based, and we believe that resource efficiency will be paramount to existing and new facilities as the data center effort spreads out. Obviously, with community consternation, we believe resource efficiency is a way of addressing that, at least in part. So we are in the early days of this. Having said that, the opportunity is here in Q4. We're delivering and installing, so we're operating at a pretty fast pace. We're very excited about the opportunity. It's a very natural extension of the work that we have done in energy industrial for a long time. While it's new, it's not entirely new. It's very much a first cousin of the work that we've done for more than 10 years.

Colin Rusch: Okay. And just one clarifying question. Is it primarily thermal management? Are you guys addressing any of the sound issues with some of these systems?

Don Young: The work that we have captured to date is around energy efficiency and the thermal management aspect of it. We do have attributes that address acoustical opportunities as well, but that's not the focus of this particular order.

Colin Rusch: Excellent. Thanks, guys.

Don Young: Thank you, Colin.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric Stine. Please go ahead.

Eric Stine: Good morning, everyone.

Don Young: Hi, Eric.

Eric Stine: Hi. So maybe just to clarify first, it sounds like you did complete the two subsea projects in Q3, so just want to confirm that. But then would love to get more details both on the significant project award that you referred to in your comments there first, but then also just talking about the significant project activity that you are seeing in energy industrial for 2027.

Don Young: Well, so two parts on that at least. Yes, we did deliver as planned and as expected our two projects in Q3 of this year, and that's why you saw that strong revenue in Q3 and a little bit of a tail-off in Q4. Although the other parts of our business are growing, it's just we all know that the subsea business tends to be lumpy. Just to put it all in perspective, we expect, and Grant said this in his comments, our history would suggest that we deliver between $10 million and $20 million of subsea revenue in a normal year. If you go back to 2024, we had some number closer to $30 million, and that's not a normal year. In 2025, we had something approximating zero. That is not a normal year. In 2026, we are falling in that normal $10 million to $20 million range. In 2027, with a project in hand, we anticipate again being in that $10 million-$20 million range for-

Operator: Hello, there is-

Don Young: the year with respect to our subsea work. The second part of your question on just the activity levels, we are seeing significant opportunity, especially on the LNG side. We are active here and throughout, really, throughout 2026, and that's going to roll right into 2027 as well. Again, subsea project in hand, that's great. We're confident we will be in that $10 million-$20 million range. There are plenty of opportunities for us to keep that rolling forward as well.

Eric Stine: Okay. Then maybe just a quick follow-up. Just would love more details on the storage revenue. I know initial revenue here in Q3. I mean, it looks like or it sounds like this may be a pretty similar product to what you were delivering, hasn't necessarily required a whole lot of tuning this to that application.

Don Young: Yeah

Eric Stine: but would love more details.

Don Young: Yeah, thank you. We've been striving and articulating a goal that we would achieve initial revenue in 2026, and that's exactly what we did here in Q3. You are correct, these thermal barriers are very much first cousins of the thermal barriers that we supply for mobility and for automotive OEMs. We believe that we will be able to convert these prototype materials, these evaluation materials, I would call them advanced evaluation materials at this point, into specific projects, and that they will be contributors to our revenue in 2027.

Eric Stine: Okay, thanks.

Don Young: Thank you, Eric.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst. Please go ahead.

Ryan Pfingst: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just starting with a follow-up on energy industrial growth for 2027. You mentioned a similar subsea revenue outlook, but how should we be thinking about LNG and maintenance growth next year, perhaps, relative to the growth we saw here in 2026?

Don Young: Well, we're not quite prepared to provide an outlook for 2027, but we do It is great to be confident that we will bring our subsea business into its normal range, as again, as we said, $10 million-$20 million. We are seeing an acceleration in our LNG revenue and efforts, so we think that's a growth opportunity for us 2026-2027. Look, broadly speaking, the energy and infrastructure space is growing, and we're going to participate in that growth. We are striving. We're kind of head down right now, trying to reach that 20% growth here in 2026, as we've targeted. We'll get to 2027 at our next earnings call, but we're moving into 2027 with a lot of momentum. Let me just say that.

Ryan Pfingst: Got it. Flipping over to thermal barrier. As you're delivering more product to the European OEMs, are you thinking about potential upside to the current 2027 outlook, and are there potential wins out there that could come soon enough that they'd show up as soon as late next year?

Don Young: Let me do the second part of that first. We are competing for additional European OEM design awards. History would say that those take You don't usually generate revenue in the same year that you win the award. I mean, not meaningful revenue at least, just prototype-type revenue. So, I wouldn't want you to count on that. But these companies are further along in their development and from a thermal protection point of view. I think from what we're seeing is from the time of design award to the time of first revenue, that period is shortening. In terms of upside, look, I said in my script that we were going to be at the high end of that $20 million-$30 million for 2026, and that we were in a position to double that revenue in 2027. I think that's a solid way of thinking about it as we go into 2027. Again, if you just take price times volume of our 2027 agreements with these companies, it's a number considerably greater than $60 million. But again, I think our history tells us to be careful and conservative, and that's what we're doing. We still think doubling the business year-over-year is impressive, so we're excited about that.

Grant Thoele: One just additional point on that, Ryan, is that I think with the European OEMs, we are obviously actively engaged on current programs, and we are also quoting new programs. So, whether or not it is a new award with a new OEM or a new award with a current OEM, I think is another way to kind of think about it for 2027.

Ryan Pfingst: Got it. I appreciate all that detail, guys.

Operator: Your next question

Don Young: Thank you, Ryan.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Chip Moore with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Chip Moore: Hey. Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to follow up on the energy storage opportunity. I guess, how should we think about the evaluation process? How does that compare to automotive? I would assume it's less work to get specced in, but testing requirements or time frames, any thoughts there?

Don Young: Well, the sequence is, again, with multiple leading partners in this space, we are providing materials. Again, what I'm referring to is advanced evaluation materials. The next full step is, I would say, full qualification, and then our customer needs to go and win their business based on our product and their modules. So, those are the steps along the way, and we believe that we will get qualifications here in the near term and revenue beginning in 2027. Again, it's a broad opportunity for us, and again, we think achieving initial revenue was an excellent milestone that we had committed to earlier this year. We reached that, and now it's a matter of converting it into ongoing, steady, profitable revenue for us.

Chip Moore: Great. Thanks, Don, for that. And maybe for my follow-up, just East Providence restart, just give us a little update there. Sounds like it's on track, and implications for margins, I guess, really in back half of next year. Thanks, guys.

Grant Thoele: Thanks, Chip. The way to think about East Providence right now is that we're fully manufacturing our aerogel blankets, and we are actively restoring the oven where the incident occurred. We're on track for first half of next year to be completed with that restoration. The team is working kind of day and night to make sure that we're putting in place all of the appropriate safety protocols and getting everything buttoned up as we should. The interesting thing about our margins so far this year, and that's why I've been citing the adjusted gross margin, is that there's just so many incident-related charges that are, from a GAAP perspective, obviously burdening gross margin, but we're adding those back to adjusted EBITDA. That's going to continue probably through the first two to three quarters of next year as we're building inventory with EMF as well. We're making sure that when we do kind of flip back to and have that oven capability at East Providence, that we have the inventory in place to do that, and we can do so in a very efficient way. Everything is going on track, and we're just proud of the team for doing all the work they're doing down there at the plant.

Don Young: Chip, I think one of the interesting things that Grant had in his script earlier today was really related to cash and the fact that we have incurred these business interruption charges. I believe he cited approximately $20 million. Again, from a cash point of view, we have not received those insurance proceeds, which we are filing claims for, and so we'll work through that process. Just from a cash point of view, it is interesting to note that we have incurred those cash expenditures without reimbursement to date. Again, we're confident that we will have a good claims process, let me say, and capture that in the quarter to come.

Chip Moore: Great to hear. Thanks very much.

Operator: We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Don for closing remarks.

Don Young: Thank you, Kathleen. We appreciate your interest in Aspen Aerogels and look forward to sharing our fourth quarter results with you in early February. Be well and have a good day. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.